Change for mental health users

I am a.mother of a 20 year old young man who has- suffered extremely disabilitating  Mental Health Issues for the most part all of his life

Starting with a diagnosis of ADHD at the  age of 10 and continuing  then through  and out his life .   Because of this he has been unable to deal with his life and his emotions are heightened at certain times in his life                                                

He was sent to a Foster Care Unit at

the age of 11

We as parents were told by the then Social Services that it was a.Residential Special Needs School  as because he was suffering from ADHD a normal presenting educational school was not suitable for his needs .(  at that  moment in time I was trying to get a Statement of Education which was impossible to get the Local Education Authority to understand my Sons needs and just kept refusing  saying that the reasons being he didnt have Learning Difficulties  I  actually ended up in a Tribunal which resulted in my Son being given one )

We were never given the correct information . We were very much miss informed and at some points during this time we most definitely were LlED To!!!!!!!!!

 I  discovered that this placement was actually a Foster Care Unit for young adholescents.We only found this out after 6 weeks and the fact that he was given the wrong medication one evening and he had to go to the local hospital to be checked over.  We never found this out till the following day with Staff from the Unit  being very VAGUE about my Son !!!!!!

.he stayed there for a period of 9 months .We managed to remove him in April 2009 due to a really traumatic trip to a hospital in which we noticed we were kept in the dark about  this by the staff at this particular placement.We were only informed of our Sons where abouts the following day and again INFORMATION  was definitely kept from us !!!!!!!

. My son disclosed  in 2012 some 4 years later and after  being placed in Residential Educational Placements for all of this time SEXUAL ,PHYSICAL, MENTAL  and EMOTIONAL ABUSE that he suffered whilst there.

Due to this very disclosure  his Mental Health deteriorated  which led to a diagnosis of PTSD which was left untreated for FIVE years by the local CAMHS team.!!!!!!!!!!

  Because of this lack of immediate help and support his problems have now  been escalated and have branched out to Non Epileptic Attack Disorder,  Phycosis,  Borderline Personality Disorder,  Extreme Mood Swings    SERIOUS ATTEMPTS AT TAKING HIS OWN LIFE! !!!!!!  self harming on a.regular basis and generally ruining his life!!!!!!!!!

He has had two inpatient admissions  to three  separate Mental Health Hospitals  and two section 136 which is where the POLICE intervene which is not what was needed at the time of these certain crisis points in my Sons life.

  The police stated  this to me and my Son on the two occassions they attended to  us (  It has to be noted that the CARE PLAN FOR MY SON AT THESE CRISIS POINTS FROM THE LOCAL CHILD AND MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES  I e  CAMHS was to infact call the Police and have him taken to a CELL!!!!!!!!!!!! This was absolutely RIDICULOUS! !!!!!! )

The .first  of these Mental Health  Pychiatric Hospitals admissions was infact being placed over  200 miles away in Norwich.  Being Sectioned under Section 2MHA then being sent voluntary to another Hospital in Maidenhead ( this placement only lasted three days as my Son decided to climb on to the Hospital roof and was promptly  discharged as the Staff didnt know how to handle him ) HELLO ???????IF THEY CANT HANDLE MY SON THEN HOW WAS I SUPPOSSED TO ???????       The second  more recently was very much more  closer to home in Weston Super Mare ..

.As a mother I have fought every step of the way to try to get my Son the help and support he needs but really to no avail  No one one wants to even listen to me or my Son !!!!!   Why is this ????? -------- he can not be the only individual with Serious Mental Health Issues? ?????

Till he is at the point of being Sectioned  (  which by the way is no way as simple as it sounds )   He then gets help  from the Professional Services involved.

My sons  life and family life are at crisis point most of the time having to watch my son 24 hours a day, to keep him SAFE AND ALIVE when he at his most worst 

 I am unable to work as he is .not safe to be left on his own  and I am his Full Time Carer .

His illness effects me and my own health is beginning to show this by having regular Stress Related Illnesses .

The change that I require is to help and support the other Service Users in Mental Health as it occurred to me whilst attending a talk the other day by Staff and Managers   of the Mental Healrh Team for the South West Of England  and The  Suicide Prevention Team that it is very difficult to gain the correct  and up to date Information  about a individual  when they  first come into Services   ,returning or are in the process of  transfering from Child to to Adult Mental Health Services.

  The relevant Agencies  never seem to pass on the information for some while so this Service User is in limbo ,untill the information about this particular individual is passed on through the Agencies involved .

If they are using Multiple Agencies this is a nightmare of a wait.This always seems to take longer because so many Professional Services  and Staff  are involved and I  swear they have problems communicating with each other! !!!!?????

.Also I noticed that new Staff or Bank Staff  working in the Community or in the thousands of Residential Educational Placements either for Learning Difficulties or Mental Health Sufferers are not  kept up to date on these individuals.

I have had this happen to me more times than I care to remember when I contact  a Professional Mental Health Worker  or be it Care Co -Ordinator or the Intensive Team  or one of the Managers of the said Service supplied, I have to explain all about my son again and again, over and over, because they simply don't know or have the information to hand due to a "mix up" with the files etc.

This is not what I need to  be hearing when my Son is at the point of SUICIDE? ???!!!!!

My suggestion to Parliament and the Health Secretary is to change all of this .

 My suggestion to change all of this red tape malarkey and  to issue  all Service Users a type of "Passport"  which would contain all the key information needed to help and support this individual at a very low point in their life. ...... It would contain all diagnosis    ,how this affected their  behaviour, also it would tell you about their behavior when they were  not unwell and how  this differed from theIr  different state of minds  and how this was recognised and presented .

  It would definitely have  to contain triggers if any and how they reacted to these what changes  these triggers had on their  behaviour and if the individual would become agitated, severely anxious ,act out of character  or show any danger to themselves or Staff or  the surrounding public  , and what to do to help them immediately.

 If they had a certain routine to make them feel safe  .How to implement this routine with the Staff provided . Notes from there immediate support network be it friends or family members   this is  a very important aspect to their well being as these people will know these certain individuals the best and must be listened to at all times ,so any information gained from them is certainly  crucial for the help support and eventual recovery of this Service User. This  would help them get the help immediately instead of having to wait in the system. Which is failing every way and getting worse as we speak .!!!!!!!!!The Government  needs to take Serious action now to stop the Mental Health System  deteriorating even further 

  The way that this information is collected  may not be correct in reports  as i have read many of years of reports on my Son and they are like a game of chinese whispers  because from the  start to the finish they all contain the original lies or mistakes  and so this information is passed on and totally useless to boot !!!!!!!!I have seen this many a time personally and it is never corrected even though we have requested for it to be changed it just gets passed on in correctly and out of date where's the point in that ????!!!!!

If I get enough signatures on this Petition then it will  be discussed in PARLIAMENT  and they need to address this as there are so many thousands of Mental Health Sufferers who slip through the net or  are passed from pillar to post.

Worse still  end up as a SUICIDE STATISTIC  this must STOP and be changed to help all of these people who deserve the help to fulfill their life's and have some forms of happiness to their life's 

MY SON   I REPEAT 

MY SON 

WILL NOT BECOME ONE OF THESE POOR ,LONELY , FAILED BY THE SYSTEM VICTIMS 

PLEASE FIND IT IN YOUR HEART TO SIGN THIS AND HELP US ALL TO HELP THESE INDIVIDUALS WHOSE LIFE IS HARD ENOUGH LIVING  EVERY DAY  WITH MENTAL HEALTH ILLNESS  LET ALONE BE TREATED THIS WAY 

THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO READ THIS AND HELP ME MAKE THIS CHANGE HAPPEN 

I AM ONLY ONE SMALL ANT IN A COLONEY I CAN'T DO MUCH ON MY OWN BUT A THOUSAND MILLION ANTS CAN IMPRESS !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!